Dear City of Madison Early Childhood Care and Education Board,
I regret that I am unable to come personally to the forum on December 10, 2008. Both discussion topics greatly affect the program I work with. Please accept my written summary of the issues. Thank you for your time and efforts to support quality early childhood programming for the children of Madison.
Agency: Eagle’s Wing Child Care and Education Programs
Director: Debb Schaubs
Program/Services: Eagle’s Wing serves approximately 120 children each semester on the UW Madison campus. Even though we are affiliated with UW, the Division of University Housing is an auxiliary to the university and does not receive any state funding – zero tax dollars. We serve children ages 18 months through 12 years of age and provide, full and half day toddler and preschool programming, before and after school care, full day summer school-age care as well as operate an academic year four-year old kindergarten program.
1. The impact of the economy on early childhood care and education in the City of Madison.
During the summer of 2008, Eagle’s Wing felt the effects of the economy as it related to the families we serve. Generally our summer school-age program fills during spring registration. It did not fill then, nor did it fill during the summer. University Apartments staff have a very close relationship with many of our residents in Eagle Heights and University Houses. We found that many parents, who would typically have enrolled their school-age children in our summer program, were needing to keep their children home instead due to economic pressures. A few families made arrangements with neighbors, but most left their school-age children primarily on their own. Many did not feel comfortable with this arrangement but had no other options. Often parents on campus would come home at noon to check on their children, but often we saw children wandering the neighborhood.
Now it’s not that these student families have a high standard of living. Many do not own a car and rely on bicycling, the city bus and our community car for transportation. Few of the families even have cable TV or satellite TV (approx 20 – 25% of our community has cable) so there really isn’t anywhere to cut their monthly living expenses. In addition many of our families are graduate students and are not eligible for some of the support services available to other families. UW tuition costs continue to increase for these student families. The costs of high quality care and education for young children continue to increase as well, but if we increase our rates again, how many families will need to leave our program? And then, where will they get care? What types of substandard babysitting will they piece together? How will this affect the children both in the short term and long?
2. Supporting the social-emotional development of children with diagnosed or undiagnosed needs in ECE programs.
In the past 3 years I’ve seen more children with special needs than I have in the previous 30 years of my early childhood career put together. Currently 22% of our enrollment are children who struggle with diagnosed and undiagnosed needs. For those with a diagnosis we are able to connect with MMSD for support services. Eagle’s Wing is very fortunate to be working with a wonderful itinerate teacher who indeed is an early childhood specialist. Each diagnosed child receives two (2) forty-five minute visits per week with their MMSD Early Childhood Teacher. When discussing the transition into kindergarten for one of our children with particularly challenging behavior, we were told not to worry, because next year in kindergarten this child will have a classroom aide working directly with him all the time. Well, that child is with us now for 50 hours each week and has 1½ hours per week with one on one.
A rather disconcerting dilemma for us is that we receive pressure from both the parents of children who have special needs as well as the parents whose children do not have special needs. There is not a single week that I don’t have parents coming to me who are concerned that their “typically developing” child has been bit or scratched or hit by a child with a diagnosis (which is altogether true). Many demand that we dis-enroll the child who displays aggressive behavior. Parents who are working through issues with their child continually ask for support and guidance. Many have accepted that there is no quick fix and are doing everything they can to advocate for their children – but the pressure is enormous. Some are single parents who are going to classes as well as working. They plead with us to give their children extra help.
I’m worried about the children – all of the children; those with and those without “special needs”. I’m also worried about the teachers. How do they stay professionally motivated when working day in and day out with an ever increasing number of behavioral issues? I’m worried that this will lead to burnout and turnover – the last thing we want for Madison’s children.
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Debb Schaubs
Manager of Children’s Services
Division of University Housing
(608) 262-8161
debb.schaubs@housing.wisc.edu